Insanity vs. Intent

"Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence." - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

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Is the world crazy? I awakened this morning to a text message that the tragic mass murder on my youngest daughter's university campus last Friday is the front page story in the New York Times today. The story delves into the volatile nature of the shooter over time that culminated in the deaths of three biology professors, serious injury of one professor, critical injury of another professor, and a staff assistant during the weekly biology department meeting, not to mention the trauma inflicted on the six surviving faculty members who witnessed the massacre.

I still feel a chill run through my body when I realize that my daughter was in the same building less than one hour before the shooting occurred, and, had it not been her spontaneous decision to leave that day rather than stay for tutoring, she would have been inside the building when the shooter was in the hallways, getting rid of her gun and trying to find a way out to avoid capture. This is the same faculty member who was teaching the Human Anatomy class last year that my daughter called to let me know she was replacing with another class because she heard about how bizarre and inconsistent this professor was. Thank goodness for the informal faculty reviews that students share with one another!

This shooting occurred exactly one week after a 14 year old student fatally shot a classmate in the hallway of a local middle school. Two senseless acts of violence that shocked our community to it's core within one short week. How are such events to be reconciled and understood? The middle school shooting was found to be related to gang infatuation while the faculty slaughter is being judged by onlookers to be either the random act of a mentally unstable woman or an intentional attack staged for an insanity defense by an intelligent, calculating criminal mind. Both acts create concern for me about the safety of our students.

I also have an understanding of the long road to recovery and possible residual effects of the physical injuries that the two injured survivors of the faculty shooting who have been critically wounded have to face and the post traumatic stress that is being experienced by the remaining survivors that were in the room and those middle school students who wonder if they can be kept safe.